Attendance tops 1,000 at Rockford Register Star's job fair

Sean F. Driscoll

Thursday

Jan 26, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 26, 2012 at 12:24 PM

ROCKFORD — The region’s yearlong uptick in manufacturing hiring and the promise of more to come from the Chrysler Group LLC plant in Belvidere brought an air of optimism to a job fair today at the Tebala Shrine Temple.

ROCKFORD — The region’s yearlong uptick in manufacturing hiring and the promise of more to come from the Chrysler Group LLC plant in Belvidere brought an air of optimism to a job fair today at the Tebala Shrine Temple.

Hosted by the Rockford Register Star, the fair included 30 companies looking for applicants for more than 120 positions in the manufacturing, health care and customer service fields. More than 1,000 job seekers attended the fair, according to Amy Steinke, the newspaper’s marketing and communications manager.

One of them was Gabriel Butler, 27, who has been out of work for more than a year. The Rockford resident last worked at Gunite as a machine operator, and was seeking something in the manufacturing field.

“It’s been pretty rough,” he said. “I haven’t been hearing too much back, but a lot of jobs are getting filled now so I’m starting to feel optimistic.”

Although it wasn’t hiring at the job fair, Chrysler recently announced it is adding 400 to 500 part-time or temporary workers at its Belvidere assembly plant in the coming months for production of the Dodge Dart, which is supposed to go on sale in the second quarter of this year. The automaker’s supplier firms are also ramping up hiring to match the car plant’s demand.

Many at the job fair were trying to find work after having lost a job, but some came looking for their first full-time position. Mark Hendricks, 24, of Oregon recently graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in architecture, but has had trouble finding permanent work in his field. So he came to the job fair trying to apply his background toward a job in computer-aided design or a similar field.

“I feel like the degree I have will help me a lot, and I’m hoping that a company will take a chance and help me with some training,” he said.